Lost, Season 6

Lost, Season 6

Gentlemen, it's so nice to have everyone back together again. Down the stretch we come, and everybody is in top form. Smokey is snarling into the horizon. Sawyer is making wisecracks about Frank's chest hair. Shafer is still refusing to give himself over to Lost and its tics.

Jack, I've held my tongue all season, but it's time someone (beside the commenters) gave you a talking-to. You can't simultaneously berate Lost for not delivering any answers and then get pissed off when it does. It's not your story; it's the writers'. Smokey's "I was worried you'd get dehydrated" explanation to Shephard was obviously part of a larger scheme to get Shephard to sign on to this newest adventure. It's also not that absurd. The castaways did need water, and Smokey needed them alive to pull off his long con. Jack, on good days you're smart enough to be a spinal surgeon. You should be—and I expect are—able to put these pieces together.

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Likewise, you should know that Smokey thinks Locke was stupid for believing in the island because Smokey doesn't believe in the island. At least not Locke's vision of it. Smokey, remember, wants off the island; of course he believes anyone who has faith in it (which now, I suppose, includes Dr. Jack) is a sucker. Opinions on this show, like opinions in life, are subjective. Which is why you and I, Jack, disagree.

Widmore's futile attempts to kill Smokey with the missles spurs a larger question as we approach the epic finale battle: Who can kill Smokey? (I'm assuming that it's true you can only kill Locke if he hasn't spoken to you.) All of our original castaways have said hello to him at this point. As have Frank, Ben, and Richard. That leaves us with only one character who can feasibly kill the smoke monster. Lost TV Club Theory No. 14! Miles will be the one who kills Smokey. The guy who can talk to dead people will vanquish the one who can take their form.

If Miles is the hero, where does that leave Dr. Jack? Now that he's a believer in the island, I suspect he'll serve as a traitor-in-waiting amid Locke's army. He may not be able to kill Smokey, but he can certainly stuff a rag in his mouth while Miles plunges a dagger in his throat. It's looking more and more likely that Jack is the one who will replace Jacob. We're set up for a finale in which Jack, the man of the island, squares off against (Smokey) Locke, the man/beast who wants off it. Predictable? Yes. But this setup has a lot of potential, too.

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Can we take a moment to discuss the least affecting emotional moment in Lost history? After two full seasons of buildup, you'd think they could have orchestrated the Sun/Jin reunion in a way that didn't make me laugh out loud. Here, verbatim, is the dialogue:

Looks like someone got an F in Screenwriting 101. Lost is owned by Disney, the same company that runs Pixar. Lost should have taken a page from Up and banned dialogue from Sun and Jin's reunion. (Also, I thought for sure one of them was going to get zapped by that sonic fence. Nothing says emotional reunion like a little foam in the mouth and blood in the ears.)

Anybody else spot the mirror when Jack first looked at alterna-Locke? Jack says he knows the guy, but it's unclear whether he knows him from the airport or the other timeline. I say the latter—as we've discussed, when mirrors are present, it's usually indicative of some cross-timeline action. Thus, a new question: Which Locke will Jack remember? Locke 1.0 or Smokey Locke? I hope it's the latter.

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Some loose ends to bring us to a close:

Sawyer's "We're done going back," was one of Lost's more effective lines this season. That should have been the tagline on every poster.

Jack and Seth, if the three of us are ever stranded in a zombie wasteland and I get bitten, somebody remind me of my true love. (A poster of Evangeline Lilly will do just fine.) It's apparently the only thing that can shake somebody out of a zombie/demon-spawn haze.

Cindy, the flight attendant, made another cameo last night. I'm looking forward to seeing why the producers have kept her around for this long. Assuming she survived the missile attacks, that is.

Ilana's law firm had a name that was all too conspicuous. A few years ago, Locke's body rested in a funeral home called "Hoffs Drawlar," an anagram for "flash forward." Ilana's firm was called "Sweetzer Verdansky." There are 17,228 anagrams that can be made from that, the first 1,000 of which can be found here. My personal favorite: "Traversed, zen we sky."* It's the koan that best describes the action in this final season. Leave your other good finds in the comments.

Correction, April 22, 2010: The article originally stated that "Traversed, then we sky" is an anagram for Sweetzer Verdansky. The correct anagram is "Traversed, zen we sky." (Return to the corrected sentence.)